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Summer Fiction: ‘Camouflage Country’ By Mel Bosworth And Ryan Ridge

by: Sam Hudzik July 15, 2016

The unusual book “Camouflage Country” is made up of 158 poems or stories — many only a few lines long. Easthampton, Mass., writer Mel Bosworth is a co-author, and even he has a hard time describing the collection.

“They’re a cross between fiction and poetry — kind of a hybrid form, I would say. They’re just very concise,” Bosworth tells us. “I’m answering this terribly.”

Even the writing process was unconventional. Bosworth and his co-author, Ryan Ridge, did not huddle in a room writing. Bosworth would email Ridge the first half of a story. Then Ridge — who lives in Kentucky — would reply with the ending to that story, and the first half of the next one — and so on.

Click the audio player above to hear Bosworth describe for New England Public Radio’s Sam Hudzik how the collaboration began.

MORE BOOKS: Past interviews from our Summer Fiction series

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